


Nuzlocke

by IsThatMrFuzzy



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsThatMrFuzzy/pseuds/IsThatMrFuzzy
Summary: I've always been intrigued by the inherent narrative elements of a Pokemon Nuzlocke. For those who don't know, a Nuzlocke is a self-imposed set of rules added to a Pokemon game to make it more challenging. While there are a variety of types of Nuzlockes, the most important rule is that a Pokemon fainting is treated as a permanent death for that Pokemon.This series is set in a non-canon region, and features absolutely no human characters from either the anime, manga, or game series. However, all Pokemon within this series are real Pokemon.The story follows the journey of an unnamed protagonist on path to becoming the Champion (this is a Pokemon fic after all).





	Nuzlocke

**CHAPTER I: PRESS START**

“...and nothing says good weather like a partly cloudy sun, isn’t that right Jeremy?”

“Sometimes I wish it only ever rained. Maybe then people would understand me bett-”

Click. The TV shuts off. _Who was watching the news last night?_ _I thought mum went to sleep before me._ Eh, at least I found the remote before the anchor started talking about his ex-wife again. I feel so insensitive for saying that, but it’s almost everyday at this point, I’m honestly getting tired of hearing it. It doesn’t that help most places are saying he’s the reason they split. Then again, he’s famous and his wife isn’t, so it could just be your run-of-the-mill tabloid gossip. _When did I start wasting my time thinking about things like that? I’m fourteen, I should be doing more interesting things with my life._

As if on cue with my thoughts, I heard a knocking on the door. To my lack of surprise, it was my friends James and Rocco. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see them, just not surprised. I barely had time to get off my worn-out couch before they barged in. James and I met when we were toddlers. I find that people who meet at a young age tend to stay friends for a long time. It makes sense, we as humans are shaped by the people around us, so naturally as we enter the age where we become ourselves, the people who you already rely on are going to be the people that form the most meaningful and important parts of you. Many of my defining traits came from my friendship with him. His intelligence and drive pushed me to never give up. When he starts things, he’s far from the best of them. But he works, he learns, and he grows until they’re isn’t a single person who can challenge him anymore. He somehow still manages to amaze me every time. It’s a shame he isn’t more popular at school, nobody ever gives him the credit he deserves simply because they don’t like him. And then on the opposite side of the spectrum, there’s Rocco. Cool, popular, naturally good at everything, outgoing. I only met Rocco a year ago, but he’s already changed me a lot, especially in the outgoing department. You see, I was never a talkative person, mostly because I lack the physical ability to talk. I was born with a pretty severe case of apraxia, a physical disability that inhibits my ability to control my vocal chords. While I can make sounds, I can’t make words, and that always prevented me from communicating with people. Upon gaining this information Rocco decided to learn sign language… it took him two days. I think that’s a perfect way to sum up who he is. Most people would make fun of me for not being able to talk, but he decides to spend his weekend learning an entirely new language just so he can understand me.

“You coming?” Rocco asked me. While there is a way for me to sign _“I have no idea what you’re talking about”_ I instead opted to just shrug in confusion, which also gets the job done.

“The Professor says he has a birthday gift for James and the two of us”, he explained. I think the three of us are slowly becoming desensitized, because that is a weird sentence out of context. Basically, for the last eight months or so, the three of us have been volunteering at the Pokemon Research Lab in our hometown. We were among a group chosen based on recommendations from a teachers. Out of the twenty people who started, we were three out of the six who actually worked with him into the summer.

“Give me a second” I signed to them. I quickly ran upstairs to my room and got dressed, before rejoining my pals onto the street. Going from the musty odour of my family’s townhouse and into the humid summer air hit like a wall, I stood on the porch for a moment to adjust to the light of the sun. _Partly cloudy, yeah right._ For some reason this moment felt important to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Everything felt so vivid, the luscious green of the tree leaves, yellow tinge of the grass. The smell of dew, the ghost-note-like rhythym of the junebugs. The street was filled with children playing, a sight I hadn’t seen in a long time. There were balls of kinds flying around. There were families packing up for a day on the beach. It all gave me a weird mix of nostalgia and... I don’t know if there’s a word for it, but that feeling that what you’re doing is going to be nostalgic. And even though I was surrounded by memories of my own childhood, the best part of it all was being able to see my two friends out on my lawn. 

“Birthday gift?” I asked James, “Do you know what it is?”. He just shrugged. It’s a birthday gift from a slightly loose-screw academic, it could literally be anything.

“My bets on food” Rocco pontificated, “He’s always calling us ‘Goldilock’s Bears’, I think it’s because we don’t eat enough”. While handing James a bowl of cold porridge is definitely a possibility, that’s not why he calls us that.

“What do the bears in the story of Goldilocks have to do with ‘not eating enough’?” James asked Rocco. 

“They cooked porridge then ditched before they ate any of it” he explained.

“You’re the only one of us who does that” James rebutted.

“Fair point, but, why else would he call us that?”. Rocco posed an interesting question, that literally he, and only he, didn’t know. Every single person who has heard us called that knew exactly why the Professor was calling us that.

“Just look at how we’re dressed” James began explaining, “I’m wearing this sweater/button-up/khaki combo, he’s wearing a jacket and jeans, and you’re wearing baggy shorts and flip flops. It’s a sliding scale of one extreme, one normal, one extreme. And that’s just the most obvious example, everything we do at the lab falls onto that scale”.

_Everything we do at the lab._ Can’t argue with that. When it comes to work and Pokemon we have three very different approaches. When it comes to having fun as friends, we’re pretty similar. That’s one of the things I like about our dynamic, we have a lot of differences, but we don’t have conflict.

“Hey, you know the way to the lab, right?” Rocco asked me. Often times I need to sign something, sometimes a gesture will do. But every now and then all I need to do is look at Rocco for him to realize what he just asked me.

“Right, you’ve walked to the lab four times a week for the last eight months. So you… probably know the way. And we live in a small city, so you’ve probably known how to get there even before then”. Yes, we do live in a fairly small city, or what most people would call a town. Grottosboro is best known for two things. The Pokemon Research Lab, and being the objectively worst named town in the region.

I guess I should explain what a Pokemon Research Lab is. In addition to being a lab for scientific experiments, it’s also a tourist attraction. The tourist section is somewhat of a cross between a museum, a zoo, and a theme park. Most kids our age work in the various restaurants and shops surrounding the lab, but us and three others get to work as tour guides. We also spend some time in the actual laboratory, but we don’t do much as we’re seen as a “legal liability to the lab, our school, and the government as a whole”. 

After a good fourty minutes or so of walking and talking we finally turn the corner to see the Pokemon Research Lab in all it’s glory. The dome shaped building has a large courtyard and parking lot in front of it. A scattered assortment of rectangular screens display advertisements for different exhibits. Speakers blast cinematic music, reminiscent of those IMAX documentaries we used to watch as kids. Meanwhile kids are running around in the low-pressure jet fountains. All the days I’ve spent walking through this courtyard, first as a guest and now as a worker, I still feel a sense of magical wonder everytime I come through here. That magic does not apply to the employee entrance at the backside of the building. A heavy metal door surrounded by a dirty concrete wall. None of the gloss and glamour of the frontside of the building. 

“Did he say where the gift was?” Rocco asked James.

“The letter said to meet him in the examination deck” James answered. _Examination deck?_ There aren’t a lot of room we haven’t been in by now, but the exam deck is one of them.

“This must be an important gift” I signed. James nodded as he swiped his keycard, unlocking the door. As soon as we stepped into the doorway, we were greeted by Dale.

“Oh good, you showed up. Big day, huh!” he said to us. Dale was one of the two assistants to the Professor. He was great with computers, and split his time between being the Professor’s personal tech support, and revolutionizing the field of biostatistics.

“Uh, I guess” James responded, “I was told I had a birthday gift but that was about it”.

“Oh, so this is a surprise then?” Dale asked, “In that case, follow me”. We followed Dale down a cold, gray, hallway and into the examination deck. The deck was like other labs we had seen, just with a bit more space. There was a table in the middle of the room, and two observatory stations near the door. On the far side of the room, the professor stood facing the wall. He had a movie-esque flair for greetings, and the turn around was one of his favourites.

“Vell, vell, vell, vat do we haf here? Goldilock’s sree bears it seems?”. The fake German accent was also one of his favourites. He turned around to face us, an empty pipe clutched between his lips. He stood in all his tweedy glory, covered head to toe in his most posh attire. Professor Robert J. Maple was an academic of the highest calibre, even if his personality didn’t seem that way. There is unlikely to be another person on the planet who knows as much about Pokemon as he does. In the field of Pokemon research there is no greater honour than his respect. 

He took an imaginary smoke of his pipe and then spoke, “Gentlemen, I am here to present you with an opportunity. Now that you’ve all turned fourteen you are finally old enough to embark on a journey I once made long ago. If you so choose, you will embark across the region, catching Pokemon and competing against others as part of the Gym challenge. I have already discussed matters with your parents, and you have their approval”. 

_My mom said yes to this?_

“I understand that this is a tough decision, take some time to think about it” he told us.

Rocco was the first to speak. “We don’t need to think about it, sir. We just weren’t expecting it, that’s all.”

James was next. “This is the greatest birthday gift I’ve ever received.” 

“Oh, son. That’s not your birthday gift, _this_ is your birthday gift” the professor said, while pulling out a box from beneath his tweed jacket, “Go on, open it up”. James unwrapped the gift, revealing three Poke Balls. 

“Poke Balls?” he asked.

“Yes. But your gift, and your friend’s gifts are what is inside the Poke Ball” he explained, “You see I have collected three rare Pokemon from far off regions. Each of you gets one”.

“Can we see them?” Rocco asked eagerly. The Professor responded by grabbing one of the balls and pressing the button on the front. A jet of blue light shot out, landing on the exam table. As the blue light faded, what remained was a green turtle with a leafy stem on it’s head.

“That, students, is a Turtwig. It’s an exceptionally rare creature from the far off Sinnoh region. It’s joined by two of it’s friends” as the Professor was explaining Turtwig to us he released two other Pokemon onto the table. The first was an orange monkey with a fiery tail called a Chimchar. The second was a round blue penguin named Piplup.

“One for each of you” the Professor told us as he reabsorbed the Pokemon back into their balls.

“We each get one?” James asked.

“That’s right” the Professor confirmed.

“I’m taking the fire monkey” Rocco proclaimed, grabbing the Poke Ball with Chimchar in it. James instinctively reaches out and grabs a ball for himself, snatching up Turtwig. I was left with Piplup, but that was what I wanted anyways. I always had a soft spot for Water-types, I love anything water related, swimming, kayaking, I even tried water polo once and it wasn’t that bad..

“Are you three okay with your choices?” asked the Professor. We nod. “Then come with me, I have some teaching to do”. As the Professor brushes past us we all turn to look at each other and took in the what just happened. 

I now understood why this morning felt so important to me. Today was the day things changed for me. And while sometimes things change for the better, and sometimes for the worse, they always change forever. Today, a permanent line had been drawn in my life.

**END OF CHAPTER**

**Author's Note:**

> All criticism and suggestions are welcomed with open ears. I tend to hate 95% of my own writing, so it can be hard for me to analyze my work and figure out how to improve it.


End file.
